Graphical object models for detection and tracking

ABSTRACT

A computer implemented method for object detection includes providing a spatio-temporal model for an object to be detected, providing a video including a plurality of images including the object, and measuring the object as a collection of components in each image. The method further includes determining a probability that the object is in each image, and detecting the object in any image upon comparing the probabilities for each image to a threshold for detecting the object.

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser.No. 60/574,799, filed on May 27, 2004, which is herein incorporated byreference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

The present invention relates to image processing, and more particularlyto automatic detection and tracking of objects in images.

2. Discussion of Related Art

The problem of describing and recognizing categories of objects (e.g.,faces, people, cars) is important to computer vision applications. It iscommon to represent objects as collections of features with distinctiveappearance, spatial extent, and position. There is however a largevariation in how many features are needed and how these features aredetected and represented.

Therefore, a need exists for a system and method of detecting andtracking an object, implementing component detection and performinginference over space and time.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a computerimplemented method for object detection comprises providing aspatio-temporal model for an object to be detected, providing a videocomprising a plurality of images including the object, and measuring theobject as a collection of components in each image. The method furthercomprises determining a probability that the object is in each image,and detecting the object in any image upon comparing the probabilitiesfor each image to a threshold for detecting the object.

Providing the spatio-temporal model for the object to be detectedcomprises providing-detectors for each of the collection of components.

The spatio-temporal model is a graphical model comprising nodescorresponding to each of the collection of components and to the object.

Determining the probability that the object is in each image comprisesdetecting the object in a current image according to measurements of theobject as a collection of components determined from a prior image and alater image relative to the current image.

Providing the spatio-temporal model for the object to be detectedfurther comprises providing a temporal window defining a plurality ofimages in which measurements of components detected therein are passedto components detected in the current image.

Determining the probability that the object is in each image comprisesdetermining the probability for a position and a size of the object ineach image.

The threshold is provided for the object to be detected, wherein thethreshold is determined empirically.

A joint probability distribution for the spatio-temporal model with Ncomponents is:${P\quad\left( {X_{0}^{O},X_{0}^{C_{0}},X_{0}^{C_{1}},\ldots\quad,X_{0}^{C_{N}},\ldots\quad,X_{T}^{O},X_{T}^{C_{0}},X_{T}^{C_{1}},\ldots\quad,X_{T}^{C_{N}}} \right)} = {\frac{1}{Z}{\prod\limits_{ij}\quad{{\psi_{ij}\left( {X_{i}^{O},X_{j}^{O}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ik}\quad{{\psi_{ik}\left( {X_{i}^{O},X_{i}^{C_{k}}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ikl}\quad{{\psi_{kl}\left( {X_{i}^{C_{k}},X_{i}^{C_{l}}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{i}\quad{{\phi_{i}\left( X_{i}^{O} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ik}\quad{\phi_{i}\left( X_{i}^{C_{k}} \right)}}}}}}}}}}}$

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a program storagedevice is provided readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program ofinstructions executable by the machine to perform method steps forobject detection. The method steps comprising providing aspatio-temporal model for an object to be detected, providing a videocomprising a plurality of images including the object, and measuring theobject as a collection of components in each image. The method furthercomprises determining a probability that the object is in each image,and detecting the object in any image upon comparing the probabilitiesfor each image to a threshold for detecting the object.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described belowin more detail, with reference to the accompanying drawings:

FIG. 1 is a system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIGS. 2A and 2B are graphic models for a pedestrian and vehicle,respectively, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 is an illustration of a pedestrian and identified components ofthe pedestrian according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart of a method for message passing in graphic modelsaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of a method according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a probabilisticframework for automatic component-based detection and tracking ofobjects in images and/or video combines object detection with trackingin a unified framework. Tracking makes use of object detection forinitialization and re-initialization during transient failures forocclusions. Object detection considers the consistency of the detectionover time. Modeling objects by an arrangement of image-base, andpossibly overlapping, components facilitates detection of complexarticulated objects as well as helps in handling partial objectocclusions or local illumination changes.

Referring to FIGS. 2A and 2B, object detection and tracking isformulated as an inference in a two-layer graphical model in which acoarse layer node represents the whole object and fine layer nodesrepresent multiple components of the object. Directed edges betweennodes represent learned spatial and temporal probabilistic constraints.Each node in the graphical model corresponds to a position and scale ofthe component or the object as a whole in an image at a given timeinstant. Each node also has an associated Adaptive Boosting (Adaboost)detector that is used to define the local image likelihood and aproposal process. Typically the likelihoods and dependencies are notGaussian. To infer the 2D position and scale at each node anon-parametric belief propagation (BP) is implemented that uses avariation of particle filtering and can be applied over a loopy graph.

It is to be understood that the present invention may be implemented invarious forms of hardware, software, firmware, special purposeprocessors, or a combination thereof. In one embodiment, the presentinvention may be implemented in software as an application programtangibly embodied on a program storage device. The application programmay be uploaded to, and executed by, a machine comprising any suitablearchitecture.

Referring to FIG. 1, according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure, a computer system 101 for implementing an object detectionand tracking method can comprise, inter alia, a central processing unit(CPU) 102, a memory 103 and an input/output (I/O) interface 104. Thecomputer system 101 is generally coupled through the I/O interface 104to a display 105 and various input devices 106 such as a mouse andkeyboard. The support circuits can include circuits such as cache, powersupplies, clock circuits, and-a communications bus. The memory 103 caninclude random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), disk drive,tape drive, etc., or a combination thereof. The present invention can beimplemented as a routine 107 that is stored in memory 103 and executedby the CPU 102 to process the signal from the signal source 108. Assuch, the computer system 101 is a general purpose computer system thatbecomes a specific purpose computer system when executing the routine107 of the present invention.

The computer platform 101 also includes an operating system and microinstruction code. The various processes and functions described hereinmay either be part of the micro instruction code or part of theapplication program (or a combination thereof), which is executed viathe operating system. In addition, various other peripheral devices maybe connected to the computer platform such as an additional data storagedevice and a printing device.

It is to be further understood that, because some of the constituentsystem components and method steps depicted in the accompanying figuresmay be implemented in software, the actual connections between thesystem components (or the process steps) may differ depending upon themanner in which the present invention is programmed. Given the teachingsof the present invention provided herein, one of ordinary skill in therelated art will be able to contemplate these and similarimplementations or configurations of the present invention.

Graphical Object Models; An object, such as an automobile (see FIG. 2B),is modeled as a spatio-temporal directed graphical model. Each node inthe graph represents either the object or a component of the object attime t. Nodes have an associated state vector X^(T)=(x,y,s) defining thecomponent's real-valued position and scale within an image (wherex,y,s,∈

). The joint probability distribution for this spatio-temporal graphicalobject model with N components can be written as:${P\quad\left( {X_{0}^{O},X_{0}^{C_{0}},X_{0}^{C_{1}},\ldots\quad,X_{0}^{C_{N}},\ldots\quad,X_{T}^{O},X_{T}^{C_{0}},X_{T}^{C_{1}},\ldots\quad,X_{T}^{C_{N}}} \right)} = {\frac{1}{Z}{\prod\limits_{ij}\quad{{\psi_{ij}\left( {X_{i}^{O},X_{j}^{O}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ik}\quad{{\psi_{ik}\left( {X_{i}^{O},X_{i}^{C_{k}}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ikl}\quad{{\psi_{kl}\left( {X_{i}^{C_{k}},X_{i}^{C_{l}}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{i}\quad{{\phi_{i}\left( X_{i}^{O} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ik}\quad{\phi_{i}\left( X_{i}^{C_{k}} \right)}}}}}}}}}}}$where X_(t) ^(O) and X_(t) ^(C) _(n) is the state of the object, O, andobject's n-th component, C_(n), at time t respectively (n ∈(1,N) and t∈(1,T); ψ_(ik)(X_(i) ^(O),X_(i) ^(C) _(k) ) is the temporalcompatibility of object state between frames i and j; ψ_(ik)(X_(i)^(O),X_(i) ^(C) _(k) ) is the spatial compatibility of the object andit's components at frame i; ψ_(ik)(X_(i) ^(C) _(k) ,X_(i) ^(C) _(i) ) isthe spatial compatibility between object components at frame i andφ_(i)(X_(i) ^(O)) and φ_(i)(X_(i) ^(C) _(k) )denote the local evidencefor the object and component states respectively.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a system comprisesthe following modules: a graphical model modules, an inference moduleproviding the ability to infer a state of each node in the graph, alocal evidence distribution (or image likelihood) module, a proposalprocess module for some or all nodes in a graphical model, and a modulecomprising a set of spatial and/or temporal constraints corresponding tothe edges in a graph.

Building the Graphical Model; For a single frame, objects arerepresented using a two-layer spatial graphical model, for example asshown in FIGS. 2A and 2B. The fine, component, layer 201 includes a setof loosely connected parts, e.g., 202. The course, object, layer 203corresponds to an entire appearance model of the object and is connectedto all constituent components, e.g., 202. Examples of such models forpedestrian and vehicle detection are shown in the shaded regions ofFIGS. 2A and 2B, respectively. In both cases objects are modeled usingfour overlapping image components. For the vehicle the components are:top-left (TL) 204, top-right (TR) 205, bottom-right (BR) 206 andbottom-left (BL) 207 corners; while for an image 301 of the pedestrian,they are: head (HD) 208, left arm (LA) 209, right arm (RA) 210 and legs(LG) 202 (see FIG. 3).

To integrate temporal constraints the spatial graphical models areextended over time to an arbitrary length temporal window. The resultingspatio-temporal graphical models are shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B. Having atwo-layer graphical model allows the inference process to reasonexplicitly about the object as a whole, e.g., 203, and reduce thecomplexity of the graphical model by allowing the assumption of theconditional independence of components, e.g., 202 and 208-210, over timegiven the overall object appearance. Alternatively, a single objectlayer model can be built with bi-directional temporal constraints.

As can be seen in FIGS. 2A and 2B, an object at a current time isdenoted as O_(t) with an earlier model denoted as O_(t−(w−1)/2) and alater model denoted as O_(t+(w−1)/)2.

Learning Spatial and Temporal Constraints; Each directed edge betweencomponents i and j has an associated potential functionψ_(ij)(X_(i),X_(j)) that encodes the compatibility between pairs of nodestates. The potential ψ_(ij)(X_(i),X_(j)) is modeled using a mixture ofM_(ij) Gaussians: $\begin{matrix}{{\psi_{ij}\left( {X_{i},X_{j}} \right)} = {{\lambda^{0}\mathcal{N}\quad\left( {{X_{j};\mu_{ij}},\Lambda_{ij}} \right)} + \left( {1 - \lambda^{0}} \right)}} \\{\sum\limits_{m = 1}^{M_{ij}}\quad{\delta_{ijm}\mathcal{N}\quad\left( {{X_{j};{F_{ijm}\left( {X_{i},X_{j}} \right)}},{G_{ijm}\left( {X_{i},X_{j}} \right)}} \right)}}\end{matrix}$where λ⁰ is a fixed outlier probability, μ_(ij) and Λ_(ij) are the meanand covariance of the Gaussian outlier process, and F_(ijm)(·) andG_(ijm)(·) are functions that return the mean and covariance matrixrespectively of the m-th Gaussian mixture component. δ_(ijm) is therelative weight of an individual component and${\sum\limits_{m = 1}^{M_{ij}}\quad\delta_{ijm}} = 1.$For experiments described herein M_(ij)=2 mixture components were used.

Given a set of labeled images, where each component is associated with asingle reference point, an iterative Expectation-Maximization (EM)method with K-means initialization is implemented to learn F_(ijm)(·) ofthe form: $\begin{matrix}{{F_{ijm}\left( {X_{i},X_{j}} \right)} = {X_{i} + \left\lbrack {\frac{\mu_{ijm}^{x}}{\mu_{ijm}^{8}},\frac{\mu_{ijm}^{y}}{\mu_{ijm}^{8}},\mu_{ijm}^{8}} \right\rbrack^{T}}} & (1)\end{matrix}$where μ_(ijm) ^(x),μ_(ijm) ^(y),μ_(ijm) ^(s) is the mean position andscale of component or object j relative to i. G_(ijm)(·) is assumed tobe diagonal matrix, representing the variance in relative position andscale.

AdaBoost Image Likelihoods; A likelihood φ_(i)(X_(i)) models theprobability of observing the image conditioned on the state X_(i) of thenode i. A likelihood model according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure uses a boosted classifier and is robust to partial occlusionsand the variability of image statistics across many different inputs.

Boosted detectors are trained for each component. For simplicityAdaBoost may be used without a cascade. Training with a cascade wouldlikely improve the computational efficiency of the system. To reduce thenumber of false positives produced by the detectors, a bootstrappingmethod iteratively adds false positives that are collected by runningthe trained strong classifier over the set of background images (e.g.,those not containing the desired object) and the detectors are retrainedusing the old positive and the new extended negative sets.

Given a set of labeled patterns the AdaBoost procedure learns a weightedcombination of base weak classifiers,${{h\quad(I)} = {\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{K}\quad{\alpha_{k}{h_{k}(I)}}}},$where I is an image pattern, and h_(k)(I) is the weak classifier chosenfor the round k of boosting, and α_(k) is the corresponding weight. Aweak classifier method is implemented: α_(k)(I)=p_(k)([(f_(k)(I))^(β)_(k) ]^(1/β) _(k) <θ_(k)) where f_(k)(I) is a feature of the pattern Icomputed by convolving I with the delta function over the extent of aspatial template; θ_(k) is a threshold, p_(k) is the polarity indicatingthe direction of inequality, and β_(k)∈{1,2} allowing for a symmetrictwo sided pulse classification.

The output of the AdaBoost classifier is a confidence h_(k)(I) that thegiven pattern I is of the desired class. An object is considered presentif${h\quad(I)} \geq {\frac{1}{2}{\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{K}\quad{\alpha_{k}.}}}$This confidence is converted into a likelihood function by normalizingthe α_(k)'s, so that h(I)∈[0,1], and exponentiating:φ_(i)(I|X _(i))∝ exp(h(I)/T)   (2)where T is a temperature parameter that controls the smoothness of thelikelihood function, with smaller values of T leading to a peakierdistribution. Consequently the likelihood can be annealed by deriving aschedule with which T changes. An exponential annealing scheduleT=T₀υ^(κ) has been determined where To is the initial temperature, υ isa fraction ∈(0,1), and κ is the annealing iteration, to work well inpractice.

Depending on an object one may or may not have a likelihood or aproposal process for the object layer nodes. For example, if the wholeappearance of an object is too complicated to model as a whole (e.g.,arbitrary size vehicles) and can only be modeled in terms of components,a uniform likelihood can be assumed over the object state space. In suchcases the object layer nodes simply fuse the component information toproduce estimates for the object state that are consistent over time.

Non-parametric BP; Inferring the state of the object and its componentsin a framework is defined as estimating belief in a graphical model. Aform of non-parametric belief propagation PAMPAS (proposed by M. Isardin “PAMPAS: Real-valued graphical models for computer vision”, in theProceedings of IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision andPattern Recognition, vol. I, pp. 421-428, 2004.) is implemented to dealwith this task. The approach is a generalization of particle filtering,which allows inference over arbitrary graphs rather then a simple chain.In this generalization the message used in belief propagation isapproximated with a kernel density, formed by propagating a particle setthrough a mixture of Gaussians density, and the conditional distributionused in standard particle filtering is replaced by product of incomingmessages. Most of the computational complexity lies in sampling from aproduct of kernel densities required for message passing and beliefestimation; we use efficient sequential multiscale Gibbs sampling andepsilon-exact-sampling to address this problem.

Individual messages may not constrain a node well, however the productover all incoming messages into the node tends to produce a very tightdistribution in the state space. For example, any given component of avehicle is incapable of estimating the height of the vehicle reliably,however once information from all components is intergraded in theobject layer node, an estimate for the overall object size can bedetermined.

More formally a message m_(ij) is written as $\begin{matrix}{{m_{ij}\left( X_{j} \right)} = {\int{{\psi_{ij}\left( {X_{i},X_{j}} \right)}\quad{\phi_{i}\left( X_{i} \right)}{\prod\limits_{k \notin {\{{A_{i}\backslash j}\}}}\quad{{m_{ki}\left( X_{i} \right)}{\mathbb{d}X_{i}}}}}}} & (3)\end{matrix}$where A_(i) is the set of neighbors of node i, {A_(i)\j} is the set ofneighbors of node i except node j, and φ_(i)(X_(i)) is the localevidence (or likelihood) associated with the node i, andψ_(ij)(X_(i),X_(j)) is the potential designating the compatibilitybetween the states of node i and j. The details of how the messageupdates can be carried out by stratified sampling from belief andproposal function is illustrated in FIG. 4.

Referring to FIG. 4, a method for passing messages between nodes of thegraphical model includes determining a likelihood associated with node i401, observing an image conditioned on the state of node i 402,determining a potential designating the compatibility between states ofnodes i and i, nodes i and k and nodes i and l 403. Messages 405 arepassed between nodes to propagate information about what statesneighboring nodes would be 404.

While it is possible to perform inference over the spatio-temporal modeldefined for the entire image sequence, there are many applications forwhich this is not an option due to the lengthy off-line processingneeded. A w-frame windowed smoothing algorithm is used where w is an oddinteger ≧1. There are two ways one can do windowed smoothing: in anobject-detection centric way or a tracking centric way. In the formerall nodes are re-initialized every time a window is shifted, hence thetemporal integration is only applied in the window of size w. In thetracking centric way only the nodes associated with a new frame areinitialized, which tends to enforce temporal consistency from beforet−(w−1)/2. While the tracking-centric way tends to converge faster andproduce more consistent results over time, it is also less sensitive toobjects entering and leaving the scene. Note that with w=1, thealgorithm resembles single frame component-based fusion.

Proposal Process; To reliably detect and track the object non-parametricBP makes use of the bottom-up proposal process, that constantly looksfor and suggests alternative hypothesis for the state of the object andcomponents. Proposal distribution is modeled using a weighted particleset. To form a proposal particle set for a component, a correspondingAdaBoost detector is run over an image at a number of scales to producea set of detection results that score above the$\frac{1}{2}{\sum\limits_{k = 1}^{K}\quad\alpha_{k}}$threshold. While this set tends to be manageable for the entireappearance model, it is large for non-specific component detectors(e.g., a few thousand locations can easily be found). To reduce thedimensionality only the top P scoring detections are kept, where P is onthe order of a 100 to 200. To achieve breadth of search sample particlesfrom the proposal were imported using uniform distribution.

Referring to FIG. 5, a computer implemented method for object detectionincludes providing a spatio-temporal model, e.g., see FIGS. 2A and 2B,for an object 501, providing a video including a plurality of imagesincluding the object 502, and measuring the object as a collection ofcomponents in each image of the video 503. The method further includesdetermining a probability that the object is in each image 504 by usingmessage passing between components represented as nodes of thespatio-temporal model, and detecting the object in any image uponcomparing the probabilities for each image to a threshold for detectingthe object 505.

Experiments; Tests were performed using a set of images collected with asingle car-mounted grayscale camera. The result of vehicle detection andtracking over a sequence of 55 consecutive frames was evaluated. A3-frame spatio-temporal object model was used and was shifted in atracking centric way over time. BP was run with 30 particles for 10iterations at every frame. For comparison a simple fusion scheme wasimplemented that averages the best detection result from each of thefour components to produce an estimate for the vehicle position andscale independently at every frame. The performance of the simple fusiondetection is poor suggesting that the noisy component detectors often donot have the global maximum at the correct position and scale. Incontrast, the spatio-temporal object model consistently combines theevidence for accurate estimates throughout the sequence.

A 3-frame spatio-temporal object model was run at a single instance intime for two pedestrians in two different scenes. Similar to the vehicledetection BP was run with 30 particles for 10 iterations. For bothexperiments the temperature of the likelihood is set to T₀=0.2.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, an objectdetection and tracking framework exploits boosted classifiers andnon-parametric belief propagation. The approach provides component-baseddetection and integrates temporal information over an arbitrary sizetemporal window. The performance of the framework is illustrated withtwo classes of objects: vehicles and pedestrians. In both cases positionand scale of the objects and their components can be reliably inferred.

Having described embodiments for a system and method for a objectdetection and tracking, it is noted that modifications and variationscan be made by persons skilled in the art in light of the aboveteachings. It is therefore to be understood that changes may be made inthe particular embodiments of the invention disclosed which are withinthe scope and spirit of the invention as defined by the appended claims.Having thus described the invention with the details and particularityrequired by the patent laws, what is claimed and desired protected byLetters Patent is set forth in the appended claims.

1. A computer implemented method for object detection comprising:providing a spatio-temporal model for an object to be detected;providing a video comprising a plurality of images including the object;measuring the object as a collection of components in each image;determining a probability that the object is in each image; anddetecting the object in any image upon comparing the probabilities foreach image to a threshold for detecting the object.
 2. The computerimplemented method of claim 1, wherein providing the spatio-temporalmodel for the object to be detected comprises providing detectors foreach of the collection of components.
 3. The computer implemented methodof claim 1, wherein the spatio-temporal model is a graphical modelcomprising nodes corresponding to each of the collection of componentsand to the object.
 4. The computer implemented method of claim 1,wherein determining the probability that the object is in each imagecomprises detecting the object in a current image according tomeasurements of the object as a collection of components determined froma prior image and a later image relative to the current image.
 5. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 1, wherein providing thespatio-temporal model for the object to be detected further comprisesproviding a temporal window defining a plurality of images in whichmeasurements of components detected therein are passed to componentsdetected in the current image.
 6. The computer implemented method ofclaim 1, wherein determining the probability that the object is in eachimage comprises determining the probability for a position and a size ofthe object in each image.
 7. The computer implemented method of claim 1,wherein the threshold is provided for the object to be detected, whereinthe threshold is determined empirically.
 8. The computer implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein a joint probability distribution for thespatio-temporal model with N components is:${P\quad\left( {X_{0}^{O},X_{0}^{C_{0}},X_{0}^{C_{1}},\ldots\quad,X_{0}^{C_{N}},\ldots\quad,X_{T}^{O},X_{T}^{C_{0}},X_{T}^{C_{1}},\ldots\quad,X_{T}^{C_{N}}} \right)} = {\frac{1}{Z}{\prod\limits_{ij}\quad{{\psi_{ij}\left( {X_{i}^{O},X_{j}^{O}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ik}\quad{{\psi_{ik}\left( {X_{i}^{O},X_{i}^{C_{k}}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ikl}\quad{{\psi_{kl}\left( {X_{i}^{C_{k}},X_{i}^{C_{l}}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{i}\quad{{\phi_{i}\left( X_{i}^{O} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ik}\quad{\phi_{i}\left( X_{i}^{C_{k}} \right)}}}}}}}}}}}$9. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying aprogram of instructions executable by the machine to perform methodsteps for object detection, the method steps comprising: providing aspatio-temporal model for an object to be detected; providing a videocomprising a plurality of images including the object; measuring theobject as a collection of components in each image; determining aprobability that the object is in each image; and detecting the objectin any image upon comparing the probabilities for each image to athreshold for detecting the object.
 10. The method of claim 9, whereinproviding the spatio-temporal model for the object to be detectedcomprises providing detectors for each of the collection of components.11. The method of claim 9, wherein the spatio-temporal model is agraphical model comprising nodes corresponding to each of the collectionof components and to the object.
 12. The method of claim 9, whereindetermining the probability that the object is in each image comprisesdetecting the object in a current image according to measurements of theobject as a collection of components determined from a prior image and alater image relative to the current image.
 13. The method of claim 9,wherein providing the spatio-temporal model for the object to bedetected further comprises providing a temporal window defining aplurality of images in which measurements of components detected thereinare passed to components detected in the current image.
 14. The methodof claim 9, wherein determining the probability that the object is ineach image comprises determining the probability for a position and asize of the object in each image.
 15. The method of claim 9, wherein thethreshold is provided for the object to be detected, wherein thethreshold is determined empirically.
 16. The method of claim 9, whereina joint probability distribution for the spatio-temporal model with Ncomponents is:${P\left( {X_{0}^{O},X_{0}^{C_{0}},X_{0}^{C_{1}},\ldots\quad,X_{0}^{C_{N}},\ldots\quad,X_{T}^{O},X_{T}^{C_{0}},X_{T}^{C_{1}},\ldots\quad,X_{T}^{C_{N}}} \right)} = {\frac{1}{Z}{\prod\limits_{ij}{{\psi_{ij}\left( {X_{i}^{O},X_{j}^{O}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ik}{{\psi_{ik}\left( {X_{i}^{O},X_{i}^{C_{k}}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ikl}{{\psi_{kl}\left( {X_{i}^{C_{k}},X_{i}^{C_{l}}} \right)}{\prod\limits_{i}{{\phi_{i}\left( X_{i}^{O} \right)}{\prod\limits_{ik}{\phi_{i}\left( X_{i}^{C_{k}} \right)}}}}}}}}}}}$